#menthon

Château de Menthon, Savoy region of France

When we’re traveling in Europe many people often ask, “How do you do it?  Isn’t it really expensive?”

While yes, generally speaking traveling in Europe can be extremely expensive, but not if you’re a bit adventurous and willing to be creative with your trip.  So, here’s a short list of the tricks we’ve learned over the years.

1. Frequent Flyer Miles.  Flying to Europe is actually a lot cheaper than you’d think if you shop around and have flexible travel dates.  It’s also very important to start shopping for your tickets early; I usually start about 6 months before the time I’d like to travel.  That being said we use an airlines award credit card.  We pay for everything, all year long, with this card.  But we use it like cash, meaning that we pay off the balance every month.  The other advantage to getting many miles this way is that depending on the card and the award you can typically use the card for free access to the airline lounges in the airports while traveling.  We pay for ALL of our flights with frequent flyer miles.  

2. Rent a Car.  Don’t be scared of driving in a foreign city with a foreign language.  If you rent a car 3 or 4 months in advance you can find tremendous deals, like $15 or $20 a day for a small car.  With GPS on everyone’s phone there is no reason to be scared, you don’t have to understand the street signs or even be able to read a map.  But, pay attention, France’s highways are very strict on speeding, a good phone holder for your car is recommended.  Also, you’ll have more options on the car you’re renting if you can drive a manual transmission (They’re much more common in Europe than automatics).  One thing to note, the best highways in France are toll roads, and they can get really expensive.  For a 4 or 6 hour trip you can easily spend 45 Euros (over $50) on tolls).  So if you’re not in a hurry,  set your Google maps to “avoid toll roads”.  You’ll save a ton of money and you’ll discover some amazing little villages along the way.  

3. Cell Phone Service.  While paying for an international plan on your phone is okay (can still get expensive w data roaming) I’ve found that a T-Mobile pay as you go plan is the best option.  Just pick up a SIM card your local T-Mobile store.  $40 per month, no contract, will get you unlimited international roaming (slower speed), unlimited texts, and phone calls are like $0.20 per minute.  Once you return from your trip, just cancel your service.  You will need to make sure that your phone is able to use a SIM card from another company.  

4. AIRBNB.  Wow, we’ve really had a great time exploring some amazing small villages and staying in some amazing houses by using Airbnb.  Since we’re on a budget we set our nightly price that we want to pay, and we never pay more than $70 per night for a family of four.  This will allow you to do a number of things.  1.  Save money.  2.  See villages that you never would have seen because your trip will be planned around your budget and the house that you find rather than the sights.  3.  You can cook your own meals.  It won’t take you long to realize that one of the most expensive items in France is food.  The one thing to remember is to be patient.  Some Airbnb homes are not what they seem.  Over all our Airbnb experience has been FABULOUS, but that being said we’ve had a few duds.  Remember, in France it’s rare that you’ll find a house with A/C.  And often times they won’t even have fans.  Also, some homes charge extra for linens and towels.  This was a big surprise for us on our first journey a number of years ago.  Now we just pack our own and if we need to use them we have them and don’t have to pay extra.  

5. Get out of the big city.  Yes, seeing all of the amazing museums, cathedrals, and historical sites in the major cities is a memorable thing, you can’t do that easily on a budget unless that is the only purpose of your trip.  The way I see it I’ll be able to do those things when I’m barely able to walk and can’t get around too good.  But now, while our family is young, we’re going to see the many things that are often missed.  By getting outside of the big city you also save a lot of money.  Cathedrals or old churches in the smaller towns in general are often times free to visit, the lesser known Chateaux are much cheaper to visit, it’s easier to find a grocery stores for food, and you have so many lodging options.  

6. Don’t Eat Out.  As I mentioned before, staying in Airbnb houses allows you to cook your own meals.  Maybe you don’t want to do that on your vacation, I’d rather not, but if we were going to eat our every meal we would not be able to travel in Europe because restaurants in France are really expensive.  In order to accomplish this we pack a collapsible cooler.  This allows us to buy our groceries at a store, plan meals to cook at home, and pack lunches to take with us during the day in our cooler.  A can of coke at the grocery store is less than 1 Euro.  A can of coke in a shop in town by itself will be at least 2 Euros and it’ll be usually more than 3 Euros at a restaurant.  Even eating at home can get expensive.  We eat a lot of sandwiches, and frozen pizza’s in France.  Yeah, not too exciting but again, we’re on a really tight budget and we’re doing AMAZING things in France so I don’t mind not having gourmet meals.  If you’re in town and don’t have a meal packed with you then look for a Kebab restaurant.  In France almost every town of any size will have many Kebab restaurants where you can get everything from kebab’s to hamburgers, chicken strips, French fries, even tacos, and it’s always very reasonably priced.  In google maps just search “Kebabs”  I know, “Kebabs? In France?”  Again, I’m on a budget and I didn’t come to France to eat.  I guess it all depends on how you want to spend your money.  Water, if and when you eat out don’t order bottled water, again, an added expense, EVERY restaurant, if asked, will bring you free water, just ask for a “Carafe d’Eau”. You should plan to buy a bottle of water at the grocery store at the beginning of your trip for each person traveling and then refill it every day.  No sense in buying and buying water.  Tap water in France tastes great!!  Finally, wine…. Do you like wine?  I’m not a wine connaiseur by any means but I’ve come to enjoy a glass of wine in the evenings.  Wine in Europe is often times as cheap as a soda.  When shopping at the grocery store check out the wine selection.  If you don’t think that you like wine then try a Rose, that’s the pinkish colored wine.  And don’t go expensive.  It’s incredible how many great wines that we have discovered, not all of them, but many, that only cost a few Euros.